Red Sox: Chris Sale's deceptive delivery creates illusion for hitters

By Nick Friar@Nick_Friar

Monday

Mar 11, 2019 at 7:35 PMMar 11, 2019 at 7:35 PM

FORT MYERS, Fla. — Chris Sale doesn’t throw a baseball like anyone else. Forget the video game-like numbers he can put up, the fact he can ramp his fastball up to 100 MPH or that his slider baffles both left and right-handed hitters.

The way he physically delivers a baseball is unique, leading hitters to claim his fastball rises.

Now, the term “rising fastball” is thrown around from time-to-time, generally describing pitchers who throw hard from a lower arm angle. But the nature of throwing a baseball should not allow a fastball to rise.

Yet last season, opposing hitters expressed Sale’s arm-slot allows his fastball to climb as it reaches the plate, expressing it’s not a trick on their eyes — which is also why they griped about his fastball taking a noticeable jump in velocity, claiming he was already hard enough to hit before he was hitting 100 on the gun.

“It’s difficult to face Sale because the fastball is rising, you think it’s on you,” Nunez said. “And how he throws with his mechanics down below makes it difficult because every ball is going up.”

Left-handed hitters naturally have a tough time against Sale, with the ball starting behind them, but Nunez feels righties face another challenge with his heat for two reasons. It’s rising and coming at the hitter’s face. In turn, Sale’s secondary pitches become even more effective.

“Anytime he throws the breaking ball or changeup, you’re off-balance. You swing without quality,” Nunez said.

From a catching standpoint, Sandy Leon doesn’t notice the same problem. Unlike opposing hitters, Sale’s catcher in 18 of his 27 starts last season already knows what’s coming. That being the case, he still believes Sale’s fastball does, in fact, rise based on the one time he faced the lefty.

“As a catcher you don’t see it much, but as a hitter you feel it,” Leon said. “I only faced him one time, but you can see it a bit as a hitter, but not as a catcher. … Especially swinging, you think the ball’s right there and then it’s a little higher and that’s when you miss it or hit a fly ball.”

So what does Sale think?

“Technically speaking, it’s impossible to do,” Sale said. “You can’t make a baseball rise. I guess the spin makes it not drop as much.”

Illusion or not, Sale still understands how this element adds further complications for opponents. His “rising fastball” is a topic discussed in the course of analyzing outings and game planning.

Though it’s not as if the lefty decides when to make his fastball “rise.” His delivery is the cause.

“I’ve talked to (Red Sox assistant pitching coach) Brian Bannister (and) he’s more on the analytics side with spin rate, pitch efficiency, hand placement, arm angle, all that stuff, and I’ve talked with him about that a little bit,” Sale said. “It’s not something that I try to do. It’s one of those natural things where my arm-angle is, my hand-angle, it’s just kind of how it works.”

While this is a crucial part of Sale’s arsenal, it hasn’t always been at his disposal throughout his playing career. He’s had his one-of-a-kind delivery throughout his time in pro ball, but it wasn’t until he took a trip to the Midwest for college summer ball where he conducted “an experiment” while playing for the La Crosse Loggers in the Northwoods League.

Things stuck, but that didn’t stop others from trying to steer Sale away from his new arm-slot. As some youth players deal with coaches instructing to throw from a more “traditional” arm-angle, Sale had a similar experience. Clearly, the lefty ignored those directions, stating those trying to alter his delivery were “not anybody that mattered.”

“Everybody’s body is different,” he said. “(Xander Bogaerts) has a different swing than Mookie (Betts). (Rafael) Devers has a different swing than Mitch (Moreland). I have a different arm action than (Matt) Barnes, but they all work because, kind of, the anatomy of how your body works. I think you find something that works and you just try to — I shouldn’t say perfect it because you can’t really perfect anything. You just try to make it as crisp as possible to be able to repeat it over and over as many times as you can.”

Based on the way hitters talk about and react to Sale’s pitching, there are times it seems his mechanics are near perfect. Yet he continues to find things to work on. In a recent bullpen, Pedro Martinez was giving Sale some feedback. Among what’s been discussed is the changeup, which Sale welcomes given he feels Martinez’s was “one of the best, no doubt.”

In the course of talks with Martinez, along with both Bannister and Red Sox pitching coach Dana LeVangie, Sale has figured out exactly what needs to be done to keep his changeup consistent, along with his fastball and slider.

“The key for me with my changeup is, because I throw (from a lower arm slot) sometimes my hand will get flat,” Sale said. “It cuts or kind of spins off (without depth). … Especially with the changeup, I try to create movement with it. So when that happens, sometimes my elbow will drop and it gets flat and I push it, instead of just throwing it. The main key for me is (keeping) my ring finger on top of the baseball. Once that gets sideways, it’s done. But having Pedro there to tell me that’s basically the same thing that he thought, it’s like, ‘OK, well, I’m at least on the right track.’”

Sale took another step forward towards seeing spring training action on Monday, throwing 45 pitches over three innings in a simulated game against minor league hitters. He threw 32 strikes, punched out five, hit a batter, walked a batter and gave up three hits, one being an RBI-double to end his day.

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